Life Sciences in the Space Program 



— The unique nature of these programs has been difficult for others both 

 inside and outside the Agency to understand. Life sciences at NASA is 

 both a centralized program (found in one organizational location) and a 

 differentiated set of relationships spread throughout the Agency, affecting 

 nearly every office in NASA. In the past, programmatic uniqueness was 

 not well understood and, thus, the discipline suffered from low visibility 

 and insufficient attention. 



The practice of dispersing various life sciences elements throughout the 

 Agency has made it difficult for others to gain a sense of a visible and 

 cohesive program. 



Life sciences activities have had difficulty gaining support in the budgetary 

 process, being disproportionately affected when budget requests were 

 dramatically reduced within NASA and often compounded by reductions 

 by the Office of Management and Budget and Congress. 



— Life sciences experiments rarely had high priority in the competition for 

 access to missions. While life sciences issues were given considerable 

 attention, they did not receive strong support from Agency personnel who 

 determine access to missions. These issues were considered relevant to 

 extended rather than short missions. 



— NASA management tended to expect that most problems could be 

 addressed through technical, engineering solutions and did not accept the 

 fact that life sciences research has a long lead time to produce results. 



— With few exceptions, life sciences does not have an organized and visible 

 constituency to advocate its agenda with individuals who control resources. 



— Joint efforts with other agencies as well as other parts of NASA are rare 

 and receive little support from program administrators. 



• In recent times, however, there are clear indications that many of these 

 practices have changed or are in the process of changing, largely because of 

 efforts by the Life Sciences Division to address these problems. Through 

 specific activities by the Division that link life sciences efforts to the broader 

 goals of the Agency, there is growing acknowledgement of the unique 

 opportunities ottered by the program. 



Growing support within NASA has been expressed through budget 

 increases, backing within the Office of Space Science and Applications for 

 capabilities such as an inflight variable-gravity facility, and increased 

 visibility in planning activities, such as those undertaken by the Office oi 

 Exploration and the Agency-wide Management Planning Team. Similarly, 

 intra-Agency cooperation with other NASA offices, such as those invoking 

 the human factors program within the Office oi Aeronautics and Space 

 Technology (OAST), signals a new visibility for life sciences within the 

 Agency. 



The activity within the Life Sciences Division has also focused on 



■nation with others outside the Agency. The program has renewed 





